Vladimir Putin

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    As Trump fans the flames of a world on fire, can diplomacy take back control?

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    Amid the chaos, havoc and war caused by a capricious and amoral US president, countries are waking up to the dangers of being excluded and abused by AmericaNever has there been a time when the world has been more interconnected than now. What happens in the secretive inner councils in Tehran, the mountains of south-west Yemen, the steppe of the Donbas, the still bloody wasteland that is Gaza and even the elegant boulevards of Paris and Milan have a common thread.One cannot understand one set of conflicts without weaving them into another, and it is this very interdependence that is making each problem so contagious, layered and difficult to resolve, leaving the world to live as if trapped inside a pressure cooker on the brink of an explosion. Continue reading… More

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      As Trump’s time runs out, this could be his most dangerous legacy: a world divided into three | Steve Bloomfield

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      We’ve heard much about the end of the west. At the proposed summit between Trump, Putin and Xi, those fears could crystalliseIn the final two years of a US presidency, when Congress has been lost, approval ratings have sunk like a stone and their party has started to think about who’s coming next, the person occupying the Oval Office can feel their power draining away. Domestic legislation, particularly in an era where bipartisan cooperation is almost nonexistent, grinds to a halt. But as the days tick by until the end, and as presidents begin to think about their legacy, there is one part of the job where they still have power: the rest of the world.In the final weeks of his presidency in 1992 George HW Bush sent 28,000 American troops to Somalia to help end a famine. For Bill Clinton, it was a quixotic attempt to bring peace to the Middle East by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barack Obama restored diplomatic ties with Cuba, making a historic visit to Havana, as well as a final, successful push on the Iran nuclear deal. Continue reading… More

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      The Trump-Putin love story’s next chapter: selling out Ukraine | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approvalIf Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast Continue reading… More

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      Putin orders release of jailed American as he meets Trump envoy for Ukraine talks

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      Russia frees Stephen Hubbard after US request while Steve Witkoff praises Putin, wanted by ICC as war criminal, as a ‘humanitarian’Vladimir Putin ordered the release of an American man from a Russian jail as he met Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday for fresh talks on ending the war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.Trump had previously asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old former teacher who had spent more than four years in Russian jails on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. Continue reading… More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and Putin: Ukraine’s future is not theirs to bargain away | Editorial

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      Russia wants America and China to decide Ukraine’s future without Kyiv. Europe must challenge this dangerous return to diplomacy of the strong for the strongDoes Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald Trump? The history of chummy phone calls, high-profile meetings and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold certainly suggests that Moscow’s thuggish ruler has a hold on this American president. If Mr Trump agrees to negotiate Ukraine’s future with Mr Putin and China’s Xi Jinping without Ukraine at the table, he will have handed the Russian leader a victory before talks begin. The message will be that strongmen are ruling the world and determining the fate of weaker nations.Ukraine has the right to determine its future. That right cannot be waved away by a self-serving Russian proposal, however much it indulges Mr Trump’s belief that world affairs should be settled by powerful men. The scales are falling from European eyes. Trumpian America is raising doubts about whether it will help deter aggression or even honour its Nato commitments. If Washington now rewards Moscow and pressures Ukraine to accept a raw deal, it would be a betrayal. European governments would wonder where America might be in the future when their own security is threatened.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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      Thursday briefing: Thanks to an erratic Trump, peace in Ukraine is still far away

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      In today’s newsletter: As Russia resists a ceasefire and Trump’s shifting priorities unsettle allies, an end to the conflict isn’t getting any closerGood morning. In his usual asinine unconventional approach to international relations, Donald Trump announced on Sunday (via Truth Social, how else) an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine”, apparently without checking with either side. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said any such deal was “news to me,” nonetheless declared he was “ready and we will accept it”. Vladimir Putin responded by blowing up some Ukrainian power plants.This has been the tenor of much diplomacy during Trump’s tenure: false starts, U-turns, incoherent positions (and some playful flirting with Vlad). Meanwhile fighting continues, and America’s allies attempt to manage the fallout. Andy Burnham hosted Zelenskyy at Downing Street yesterday, stating the UK is doubling down on its support for Ukraine, and pointedly calling on others to “follow suit”.UK | Sally Rooney has said she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale in the UK because of her support for the banned organisation Palestine Action.Gaza | Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza, the Guardian has learned.EU | Britain will benefit from much closer trading relations with the EU even if that means giving up its ability to negotiate free trade agreements, the Scotland secretary has said.Ukraine | Ukraine’s military has suddenly had its access to Starlink satellite internet terminals restricted as the Trump administration has increased pressure on Ukraine to immediately halt long-range strikes on Russia’s oil industry.Vaccine | Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said. Continue reading… More

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      The Guardian view on Trump’s deal with Putin: grim and grubby, but not gamechanging | Editorial

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      President Zelenskyy’s allies must show the Russian president that American perfidy won’t alter the course of a war the Kremlin is losingWhen Donald Trump pledged to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of re-entering the White House last year, no one with any depth of insight into the conflict believed him. But Mr Trump took his own words seriously enough to feel the lack of a ceasefire as an affront to his self-image as a master dealmaker. After a period when it seemed that Kyiv’s European allies had steered the US president away from pro‑Kremlin partisanship, he has reverted to the grotesque view that Ukrainian capitulation is a necessary precondition for peace.These are the perilous circumstances in which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Andy Burnham on Wednesday in Downing Street. In recent days, the US president has called for a change of government in Ukraine. He claimed that a partial ceasefire had been agreed, while Russia escalated its bombardments. According to Mr Zelenskyy, the latest missile strikes have come without the intelligence warnings from the US that have, in the past, facilitated self-defence. There have been reports of Ukrainian soldiers losing access to the Starlink satellite network, controlled by Elon Musk, the US tech oligarch. This raises suspicion of coordinated pressure to tip the scales in Russia’s favour after many months when Mr Putin’s forces have failed to deliver significant advances and his country’s economy has been suffering from the effect of Ukrainian missile and drone counterstrikes.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More

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      The Guardian view on the US, Russia and the international criminal court: Trump’s assault on the rule of law intensifies | Editorial

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      A fuel deal with Vladimir Putin, and sanctions against the legal institution, ram home the president’s belief that might is rightOn Friday, Donald Trump drove home his belief that might is right and the rule of law is an obstacle rather than an essential foundation stone of international order. First came the escalated assault on the international criminal court (ICC), sanctioning the body itself. Then he announced a deal with Russia to buy diesel.The US has long chafed at the notion of being bound by the rule of law that it espoused publicly. That hypocrisy now appears as a lesser vice. The president has declared that “my own morality” is all that constrains him. His brazen flouting of the law, embrace of dictators and rhetorical attacks all undermine global standards.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading… More